Tales of A Sinner
by Princess of Radiance
Summary: Glimpses into the scenes of the game that had an impacting effect on Vincent Valentine. T for swearing, violence, and some light gore. Mentions of Cleris, CloTi, VinLu, CidShera and Reffie.
1. Chapter 1

Because I felt like it.

This is a series of not-drabbles, I guess, more like a short story focusing on the important-to-Vincent events of the original game. It's part-novelization, part expansion.

And part-I-just-wrote-it-becasue-I-love-Vincent.

I like Yuffie and Cait, so they get slightly bigger roles, and so does Cid.

* * *

Cloud and the rest of the group made their way down the creaking wooden steps of the basement. "Eeeugh….." Yuffie mumbled. "This place is SUPREME gross-ness…" Cloud snorted.

"Deal with it, Yuffie."

Tifa, sensing an impending argument between the ex-SOLDIER and the young ninja, interrupted. "Hey, Cloud? Are we going to find the man mentioned in the letter? You know, from upstairs?"

The blond shrugged. "I guess. We'll see what we find. It's not likely he's still alive, though."

Aeris frowned. "Do we even know where to look…?" Cloud turned and looked at her.

"Yeah, when I was here with Sephiroth, I remember seeing a locked door down here somewhere. That's probably where he is."

Tifa frowned slightly, but no one seemed to notice. After they reached the bottom of the stairs and entered the rocky basement, Cloud began to look for the door.

"Damn...! I know it was here somewhere…"

With its tinny little laugh, Cait pointed at a rotted wooden door. "There it is!" With a curt nod, Cloud headed to the door, Barret joining him. They both began to ram their shoulders into the door until it  
simply fell apart. Cloud brushed himself off and walked in, the others following.

Yuffie shivered. "Yeeegh….this place is nastier than the rest of the house! Who'd put someone in here!" She glanced over towards the right-hand side of the room and squealed in shock. "OHMIGAWD! COFFINS!" She cried, and ran behind Barret. "This guy's a- a VAMPIRE! He's gotta be!"

Cloud rolled his eyes. "Yuffie, there's no such thing as vampires. You're old enough to know that."

The girl just gulped.

Aeris walked over to the center coffin; it was the only sealed one. "I think he's in here….." She said quietly. "I hear breathing."

Cloud walked over, and with one fluid motion, ripped the lid of the coffin off, scattering nails across the floor. The others slowly walked over to look inside, Yuffie still clinging to Barret.

Inside was a man, they'd known that already. But they hadn't been expecting a living, breathing one. The figure in the coffin looked like he'd simply fallen asleep a few moments ago, and they could see the rise and fall of his chest. He was sleeping.

Tifa whispered, "What a strange man…."

He was dressed in all black, save for a ragged red cloak and a worn-looking red bandana. His left arm was encased in a golden claw-like gauntlet, and he had a normal glove on his right. His most striking features, however, were his long, tangled black hair and deathly pale skin. Yuffie had just poked her head out from behind Barret, when his eyes opened suddenly.

His crimson eyes.

Yuffie let out a squeak, and pulled her head back.

"To wake me from this nightmare…..Who is it…?" He glanced around sleepily as he pulled himself to a sitting position. "…Never seen you before. You must go, now." His voice was hoarse and scratchy, as if he hadn't used it for years.

Cloud studied him for a moment, and then sighed. "It looked like you were having a nightmare."

Aeris pressed one hand to her mouth in concern. "What happened?"

The man shook his head slowly. "I have….nothing to say to strangers here. Again, please leave. This mansion is only….the beginning of a nightmare." He sighed softly.

Cloud snorted. "Tch. You can say that again."

The man looked up at him, confused. "What do you know…?" He asked hesitantly.

Cloud sighed. "Like you said, this mansion WAS the beginning of a nightmare….but-" He shook his head. "No, it wasn't a nightmare. It was real. Sephiroth…he found the secret here…he went insane."

The man's eyes widened and he shot to his feet, startling the girls. To Cloud's surprise, he was very tall and very thin. "Sephiroth!" He cried hoarsely, and then dissolved into coughs.

Cloud blinked. "You know Sephiroth?", they asked one another, once the man had recovered.

The man looked down. "You begin." Cloud nodded, and all was quiet as he repeated his story of death, fire, and insanity.

When he was finished, he looked at the man and gestured. "It's your turn."

"No." They all looked at the man, startled. "I…..cannot." His voice broke, and he began to lie back down. "I am sorry…."

Barret crossed his arms angrily. "Uh-uh. You ain't gonna just quit out on us like that, ya hear!"

The man took no notice. "Hearing your story…has added upon me yet another sin. More nightmares shall come to me now….more than I previously had. I apologize, but you must leave." With that, he began to close his eyes.

Cloud shrugged. "If that's the way you want it…." He said, and began to walk out. He didn't get very far, however. He hadn't gone two steps when he heard Aeris shout. "Oh no, you don't, mister!" He turned around. The Cetra was standing there with her arms crossed, glaring at the man in the coffin.

"You sit back up now! I don't know what happened to you, but you should be a little nicer! At least tell us your name!"

The man sat up once more, looking at her intently. "….If you insist….." He mumbled. "I….was with the Shinra Manufacturing Department in Administrative Research…..commonly known as the Turks." He sighed and continued. "My name is Vincent Valentine."

Cloud spun to look at him fully. "The Turks?" He cried, looking startled. "…Well, it did say so on the note…" Red grumbled, but no one took notice.

Vincent sighed again. "Formerly." He repeated. "No longer am I affiliated. And you…?" He asked, obviously just to be polite.

"Aeris Gainsborough, a flower girl from the Midgar slums and the last Cetra."

"Tifa Lockhart, bartender."

"Barret Wallace, leader 'a AVALANCHE."

"Nanaki- affectionately called Red- son of Cosmo Canyon warrior Seto."

"Y-Yuffie Kisa- Kisaragi…ninja of Wu-Wutai!"

"Cait Sith, a fortunetelling robot!"

"Cloud Strife. Ex-SOLDIER."

Vincent, who had been nodding mechanically for everyone else, looked at Cloud sharply when he spoke. "SOLDIER….You used to work for Shinra as well…?" When Cloud nodded, he asked hesitantly, "Did you….have you heard of a woman named Lucrecia?"

Cloud shook his head. "No, sorry. Who is she?"

Vincent looked away and then spoke, his voice oddly full of an unknown emotion. "Lucrecia…Sephiroth's mother."

"What!"

Stunned, Cloud asked, "Wait…wasn't JENOVA Sephiroth's mother?"

Vincent chuckled hoarsely, without humor. "No. You've been had, I'm afraid. Sephiroth's mother was a scientist who worked on the JENOVA project….." He looked down, adding softly, "The beautiful  
Lucrecia…."

Aeris frowned sadly. "A….human experiment? How awful."

Vincent shook his head, still not looking up. "I…..was unable to stop the experiment. I could only…stand by and watch. That was my sin. I…I let the one I loved most in this world…face the worst alone." His shoulders shook softly. "This is my punishment."

Aeris and Tifa looked at each other sadly, Aeris's eyes filling with tears. "So you're going to stay here forever…?"

Vincent didn't look up. "Please go away." was all he said in a broken rasp, almost unable to be heard. "Leave me." With that, he lay back down.

Aeris sighed. "You won't come…?" No reply. Cloud shook his head. "C'mon, Aeris. He obviously doesn't want to be bothered. Let's go on."

With that, the team left the room.

* * *

I listened to the echoes of their footsteps leave down the basement corridor. _How…could someone have found me here? How could I have let them wake me from my nightmares?_ I doubted the answer would come as quickly as sleep. I supposed I would never know.

But sleep did not come, as it usually did. I lay awake, bereft of my fitful slumber, staring at the pitch black room. _Why…? _I wondered. _Why am I unable to sleep? _

Unwillingly, my thoughts turned to the strangers. The one that stood out to me most was not the young, brash SOLDIER, nor was it the two intelligent felines. It was the young woman, the self-proclaimed 'flower girl', the Cetra. _She….somehow, she…reminded me of Lucrecia. How odd… _I frowned. _The poor young thing. Shinra must want her. I have heard the same stories they have, and I am certain of it. She must be suffering- _I sat up suddenly, shaking my head. _Damn it all. Why am I thinking as if it concerns me….when I have nothing to do with it? _

But I did, I realized. It was my fault. If I had stopped Hojo that day….saved Lucrecia….none of this would have happened. Shinra wouldn't be involved in this at all. Sephiroth would not be as he is now. And…if it is as they say, he would not be after that little group as well. After Aeris, the last Cetra. Against my will, my mind conjured up the image of the girl, dead by the hands of Sephiroth. _No! Not again. I will not be powerless again; I will not stand by and watch again. If there is anything I can do to prevent what I have begun….I will try. I must try. _

With that in mind, I stood up once more. At that moment, I had decided to go with them. _Hmph. If I can walk, that is. _

I stumbled across the room, painfully aware of my long years spent unmoving. As I stepped over the rotted and splintered wood of what had once been a door, a thought struck me. _What if they have already departed…?_ I sighed, angry with myself for foolishly thinking I could join them. I was just about to give up hope and return to my slumber when I heard their voices coming back towards the stairs from the experimentation room.

_Good. They are still here._

I took another breath of musty, stale air, and called out to them as they approached….

* * *

"Wait!"

They turned to look, surprised. Vincent was standing in the doorway of the coffin room, looking a little surprised as well.

"If I join you…is there a chance I will see Hojo?"

Cloud shrugged. "Probably. He DOES work for Shinra, and they're after us, so….yeah. Most likely."

Yuffie paled. "Whoa whoa whoa! Are we gonna let him join us, Cloud?" She yelped. Cloud gave her a dirty look, and then turned to Vincent. "So…you're coming?"

Vincent nodded. _Lucrecia…._ "Yes. As I am a former Turk, I may be of some use to you and your group."

Aeris smiled brightly. "Okay then!" She walked over to him and stood on her tiptoes, looking closely at his obscured face. "Nice to meet you, Vincent!" She giggled and took his un-gauntleted hand. "Come on! It should be morning about now, so we can just get going, right?" Cloud nodded.

The group plus one went up the stairs. As they reached the top, Aeris darted to the window. "Ooh, the sun is rising! How pretty!" She turned to look at Vincent. "Oh, I bet you haven't seen the sun rise in-" She tilted her head curiously. "How long have you been down there?"

Vincent's eyes widened, and he sighed. "I had no way of telling the time, Miss Aeris. Judging by the state of the rest of the mansion, however…I should say a decade or two, at the very least."

Aeris gasped. "Oh, my! That is a long time, isn't it…." She took his hand again and began to pull him towards the door. "Well, if you haven't seen the sun rise in THAT long, I'm gonna have to fix that!"

Before Vincent could protest, he had pulled him down the staircase and out the huge oak double doors.

"Ah!" He yelped in pain and closed his eyes tightly against the sudden brightness. After his eyes had adjusted, he opened them again slowly, and gasped at the sight. "It….is beautiful, isn't it? I had forgotten…" He said softly. He closed his eyes again and breathed in the clean mountain air, welcome after the musty, stale basement air he'd grown used to. "It's been so long since I….was outside."

Aeris giggled. "I can tell. You know, before I met Cloud and went on this journey; I'd never seen the sky before. I think I reacted the same as you, when I saw it." She looked over at him. "What made you decide to come?" She asked.

"I…I need to see this through. It was my fault all this happened, in a way, so….I want to help fix it."

Aeris nodded, seeming to know that it wasn't the whole truth, but accepting it anyways. At that point, the others had joined them outside, and Cloud pointed towards the mountains. "We go that way, towards Mt. Nibel."

The others nodded, and they set off.


	2. Chapter 2

Yuffie-centric chapter, ho! I like this one. It's cute.

* * *

As the group slowly picked their way up the mountain, Tifa in the lead, most of the group kept sneaking glances back at their newest member, trailing at the back of the group. All except for Yuffie.

She had run to the head of the group, right behind Tifa, as far from Vincent as possible. She was refusing to look anywhere but straight ahead, and was hissing half-frightened, half-angry streams of Wutaian obviously about the man. If Vincent understood, or even noticed, he didn't seem to be bothered by it, merely keeping to himself.

The rest of the group tried to ignore it, but about halfway through the cliffs, Cloud had had enough.

"Yuffie, will you shut the hell up?"

Yuffie stopped to turn and glare at him. "You're not the boss of me, Spikey. _You _shut up!"

Tifa frowned in concern, and joined in the conversation. "Yuffie, what's gotten into you? You're acting…"

"…more immature than usual?" Cloud finished, with a look of annoyance.

Yuffie crossed her arms and glared harder at the two of them. "I'm not being immature, you're all being _stupid!_"

Tifa blinked. "What? Why?"

The young ninja growled and jabbed a finger at Vincent. "I still can't believe you let _him_ come with us! We don't know a thing about him, really, and you just say 'okay, come on and hang with us'? That's stupid! For all we know, he really _is_ a vampire! If he sucks our blood or something in the middle of the night, then I'm blaming you!" She spat several words in Wutaian, that were most likely quite rude.

Cloud clenched his fists. "Well, if you don't like the way I do things, Yuffie, then you can just leave the group!"

Yuffie slapped Cloud across the face before he could react. "Fine, then. I _will_! You stupid, spikey-headed jerk! You'll be _begging _for me to come back, I just know it! And you know what? I _won't!"_

With that said, she turned and ran deeper into the mountains, leaving behind a stunned Tifa and a furious Cloud nursing a stinging cheek.

Aeris glanced over at Vincent, who had slipped closer during the commotion. "Sorry about that, Vincent. She's actually not that bad, once you get to know her…"

Vincent shook his head slightly. "It doesn't bother me, Miss Aeris. I understand her sentiments. I can only imagine how intimidating I may seem to someone so young…"

Aeris sighed softly, not pointing out that yes, he actually did sound quite bothered by the fact that he was frightening to someone. She gave his a quick pat on the arm, and they moved on.

Several long, arduous hours of climbing and maneuvering through caves and cliffsides later, they finally made it to the spacious cavern that marked the exit. They could see green fields out the opposite side. But the cavern wasn't empty.

"What is that?" Tifa whispered anxiously.

"A Materia Keeper, it's called." Cait chirped after a moment. "Only found near reactors, 'cause they eat Mako and its byproducts. Cannae say why it's here, though; this reactor's been dead for ages."

"Well…it- it looks busy, Cloud." Aeris said nervously. "Can we just, you know…sneak by?"

Cloud shrugged an affirmative, and they slowly made their way around the massive, blue, spiderlike creature, all of them noticing that its cliffside nest was filled with shining materia. They were almost outside, when Tifa, taking one final look back, let out a scream.

"_Yuffie!"_

The rest of them spun. Tifa was right. There was Yuffie, unconscious between the Keeper's claws. The Keeper had been busy, all right. It was spinning a thick, viscous web around her, and was obviously getting ready to make her lunch.

Cloud unsheathed his sword, swinging it forward in a battle stance, but Vincent was faster. Using reflexes he'd thought long past gone, he darted under the Materia Keeper, pulling Yuffie from its grasp just as the creature struck. The shriek of anger as its fangs hit rock woke Yuffie, and upon seeing who held her, she began to struggle against his strong grip.

Gently, he placed his hand over her mouth. "Save your protests until after the danger has pa-" He stopped speaking abruptly, his eyes widening imperceptibly. Both he and Yuffie looked down in unison to see a dark stain blooming on his shirt where the Keeper's claw had pierced his chest.

"V…Vampire guy…?" Yuffie asked shakily.

Vincent didn't seem to hear her. His eyes drifted somewhere far away for a moment, then he refocused, a genuine emotion filling his eyes for the first time since he'd woken- fear.

"C…Cloud!" Yuffie screamed.

The blond started over worriedly, sheathing his sword. "Are you okay? What happened?"

When he was only a few feet away, Vincent surprised him by throwing a scared, shaking Yuffie at him.

"Vincent?"

The man looked up and Cloud took an involuntary step backwards. _His eyes…what the hell's wrong with his eyes?_

"G…get her away! Stay back, all of you…!" Vincent shouted at them, the abject terror in his voice almost overpowered by its transformation into a deep, low growl.

Cloud dragged Yuffie to where the others were standing at the exit, and spun back around in time to join the others in watching the most indescribably terrifying thing they'd ever seen. Before their eyes, Vincent's body warped and changed, mutating into a massive, lithe-bodied creature resembling a behemoth.

It let out a mournful, agonized howl, and leapt upon the Keeper.

The party could only look on in wordless shock as the beast that had once been Vincent tore the Materia Keeper limb from limb, spattering its purple blood across the cavern. Once finished, it leapt back off the creature's body, and began to advance on them. They took a collective step backwards, but the beast's intentions were not to harm. He stopped several paces from them, and with another agonized howl, he slumped to the ground, shrinking back to Vincent before collapsing unconscious, his clothing bloody and torn despite the fact the Materia Keeper hadn't touched him after that first wound.

Cloud walked over silently and picked the other man up, carrying him back to the group. Aeris lightly placed a hand on his chest, and then smiled softly. "He's breathing normally…he'll be okay."

Cloud nodded. "We make camp right here tonight."

As they set up camp, it was blatantly obvious that most of the group placed the blame on Yuffie for Vincent's injuries and…the rest of it. Yuffie didn't seem to notice, because she blamed herself, too. She had plopped herself down on a rock next to the sleeping Vincent after Aeris had tended to her, and curled herself up as small as possible, ignoring everyone but Vincent.

Late that night, Vincent woke up. For a moment, he didn't know where he was and he sat up sharply, panicking slightly. But then he saw the stars, and the form of Cait, shut off for the night, and he remembered. He remembered what had happened in the cave, too, as he gingerly felt the bandages around his chest. He wondered bitterly how the others had even stood to be near him after seeing what he had become.

"You're awake?"

He blinked in surprise, and then turned towards the voice. Yuffie was sitting on a rock looking at him with an unreadable expression, her face streaked with tears.

"Miss Yuffie…?"

She frowned. "Don't call me that…you shouldn't be being nice to me. It's my fault you got hurt, 'cause I ran away. And I was being a brat to you, anyways. If I were you, I'd be pretty angry with me. I mean, everyone else is."

Vincent shook his head. "You're a child, Miss Yuffie. It's quite all right to be honest with your feelings. I don't hold it against you. As for my injuries…I don't suppose you knew the Keeper was there-"

"Oh, I saw it. It attacked me 'cause I was going for the materia in its nest." She laughed softly. "That's me, stupid ol' Yuffie, getting in trouble 'cause she acts before she thinks and has a mouth too big for her brain."

Vincent chuckled softly, making Yuffie jump. "That isn't necessarily a stupid thing to do. I consider it rather brave." He paused. "Well, maybe a tad reckless, but brave nonetheless."

Yuffie giggled and slid off the rock to sit next to him. "Yeah, I know. I thought it was sleeping. And I'm usually pretty good at sneaking around. I _am_ a Wutai ninja, ya know."

"I can tell." He was quiet a moment, and Yuffie could almost swear she saw him grin. "I speak Wutaian, actually."

Yuffie paled. "So you understood what I was- oh, man…"

"It's all right, I've heard much worse."

The two fell silent for a long moment. Then, Yuffie hesitantly asked, "Did…did it hurt? When you…you know?"

"Yes…it did."

"Sorry again."

"You don't need to apologize."

Yuffie smiled at him. "Okay, then I won't."

She got up and took a few steps away. "I'm gonna go get Aeris, tell her you're up. Okay? You sit tight." At Vincent's nod, she turned away, but hesitated and turned back. She took something out of her pocket, and dropped it in Vincent's lap.

"As an apology gift. Keep it. It's what my 'reckless bravery' got me." She waved at him quickly as she walked away.

He looked down at his lap, and saw a red materia glowing innocently at him. He smiled softly, and slipped it in his own pocket.

Maybe his curse wouldn't be as unbearable if he was traveling with these people…


End file.
